Brian Boyle, Jonathan Drouin and Alex Killorn scored and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves to lead the Tampa Bay Lightning over the Carolina Hurricanes 3-1 last night.
Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman had two assists each.
Tampa Bay’s third-ranked power play got the better of the Hurricanes’ top-ranked short-handed unit in the first, converting two of three chances.
Jonathan Drouin scored a power play goal late in the first period to make it 2-0 Lightning. Drouin’s 11th goal of the year was assisted by Kucherov (22) and Ondrej Palat (11) at 19:50. Drouin scored just as the first penalty of a 5 on 3 expired. He fired one past Carolina goalie Cam Ward from the left circle. It was Drouin’s team leading sixth power play goal.
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The second period saw Alex Killorn score his 12th of the year from Mathew Peca (1) and Hedman (26) at 13:22. Peca passed from the boards to Killorn down low where Killorn shot the puck past Ward. For Peca it was his first NHL point.
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The Bolts lost Brian Boyle to a lower body injury suffered in the second period.
The third period was scoreless as the Bolts closed out 2016 with a 3-1 win over Carolina and improved to 19-15-4 (42 points)
Hedman on the win: “That’s a good way to end the year on a high note.”
Coach Cooper on scoring two power-play goals last night: “The key for us was we won every face-off before the goals.”
Carolina equipment manager Jorge Alves played the last 7.6 seconds of the Hurricanes’ 3-1 loss Saturday night to the Tampa Bay Lightning after signing a professional tryout contract to be the backup goalie in place of Eddie Lack, who is ill.
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